Washington and Lee University - Calyx Yearbook (Lexington, VA)

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»■ »; • r? - Nearly two hundred years ago a handful of Augusfa County youths were as Augusta Academy. Within the rough-hewn walls of pine they gained wisdom and inspiration and went out to assist in founding a mighty nation, in winning its lands in making its laws and in welding a mighty industrial empire out of the raw wealth of America. Youno men of later generations have heard of its fame learned of Washington ' s hopes for it. Lee ' s service to it, and they too have come. Today no oiher college in America draws so large a proportion of its students from the four ccrners of the nation. Recent surveys conducted by Dartmouth College and Rutgers University have shown Washington and Lee to be far ahead of any other American university in the proportion of students assembled here from sections of the country other than its own. A survey made by the University itseif »his year has confirmed the previous findings. Washington and Lee, after nearly two centuries of conspicuous service to the nation has achieved George Washington ' s ideal of a truly national university.

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yiaAhnicjtcn and J eeA jl tcMAeni . . . MEN WHO HAVE SHAPED OUR DESTINY i IN the course of its corporate history, Washington Y and Lee has had twelve presidents, twelve men of widely disparate antecedents but singularly unified aim. One of them came to Washington College after serving as commander of the Confederate armies in the Civil War. Another had sat in the cabinet of the United States. Others were chosen from the presiden- cies of other colleges, or from the faculty of the Uni- versity itself. Yet whatever their previous environment or profession, they have proven men of fine character, broad educational philosophy, and whole-hearted devo- tion to Washington and Lee. Of the seven principals of Augusta Academy and Lib- erty Hall prior to its incorporation, little is known to- day except the name. Beginning with its incorporation by act of the Virginia legislature in 1782, however. Liberty Hall Academy was administered by the Rev- erend William Graham, who served fourteen years. After graduation from Princeton, Graham came to Lib- erty Hall in 1776, bringing with him the carefully- recorded notes taken in his classes at Nassua Hall as a model for the Academy ' s courses. In 1796 he resigned to enter the Presbyterian ministry, and after a two-year inter-regnum, the trustees elected as president George Addison Baxter. This alumnus of Liberty Hall served until 1829, when he resigned to devote his declining years to the teaching of theology at the Union The- ological Seminary, in Richmond. In 1830 Louis Marshall, brother of John Marshall, and a native of Kentucky, assumed the presidency, bringing with him an advanced educational theory embodying features since adopted by various progressive institutions in this country. The innovations proved too advanced for the times, and Marshall gave up in 1834, to be suc- ceeded by Henry Vethake. Dr. Vethake, a native of British Guiana, found administrative work less to his taste than teaching and two years later resigned to accept a professorship at the University of Pennsylvania, where he later became provost. The same year Dr. Henry Ruffner, one of the greatest men in the history of the University, was inaugurated president. He served the college for twelve years and among other intelligent services began a history of the institution, today a valuable source of information. Ruff- ner was succeeded upon his resignation in 1848 by George Junkin, another remarkable personality. Dr. Junkin was a native of Pennsylvania, founder of Miami University and Lafayette College, and like his predeces- sor was opposed to the institution of slavery. An in- creasing divergence of sympathy between the president and the students over the issue of secession came to a climax in 1861, when the flag of the seceding state of South Carolina was raised by a group of students on the college flag staff. The incident was repeated, and before dusk Dr. Junkin was driving out of Lex- ington towards Philadelphia, never to return. Never in its history had Washington College been more destitute or forlorn than it was at the close of Civil War hostilities. Not only did it lack equipment, endowment, president, and part of its faculty, but students were few in the impoverished South. Those professors who re- mamed, however, had sufficient faith in the school to urge Robert E. Lee to accept its presidency. In the renascence which followed students hastened from the North as well as the South, endowment was trebled, and Washington College, with 400 students, became one of the significant schools of the nation. George AoDtsoN Baxter Louis Marshall Sdho%K,lu by Cha,h WiUon PreU Henry Vethake